Mark Sanford Hiking the Campaign Trail

The year’s best April Fools joke was played a day late, and on the GOP. On April 2^nd Mark Sanford won the Republican primary for the 1^st congressional seat of South Carolina. Sanford has won the right to face Elizabeth Colbert Busch, who happens to be the sister of late night personality (and Super PAC owner) Stephen Colbert. The RNC has been thrust into a lose-lose situation. They can either get in a fundraising and media battle with Colbert to save a seat they have not spent money on in decades, or they can watch Colbert’s sister steal a historically red seat out from under them. Either option looks bad for a party relying on its stranglehold on both the South and the House of Representatives. This race is more than just a funny headline that ought be gracing the cover of The Onion; this is another example of the crossroads that must be faced by todays Republican Party.

            Incredibly, Sanford could potentially win, as recent polls have him behind Colbert Busch by as little as two points. This is a very wealthy and right-leaning district. It is also essentially the same district (after 2012 redistricting) as the one Sanford represented in the early 2000s.

 If Sanford does manage to win, the GOP must be questioning how beholden he will be to them. National and local Republicans did not exactly rush to Sanford’s aid when his scandal broke and many of them were certainly hoping that his opponent would win the Republican primary.

Has there ever been a bigger wild card politician than Sanford? He has risen like a phoenix out of his self inflicted ashes and seems determined to gain power once again. This man seems bound by nothing. His party will be supporting him only for congressional seat numbers, his constituents only because they are demographically far too conservative for Colbert Busch to truly represent their will. If he is elected, nothing will stop him from voting however he desires. The man truly has nothing to lose and no one to represent but himself.

Sanford has been running a campaign based on redemption. It’s a smart gambit. Bring up your affair before anyone else does and your opponents cannot talk about it. Ask your mistress to become your fiancé and take her on the campaign trail. Suddenly she has a name (Belen Chapur) and a face. He has repeatedly thanked her for her longstanding suffering. Voters are starting to feel sympathy for her. Sanford has turned his greatest weakness into a strength.

But there is someone else Sanford has been thanking besides his fiancé: God. Religion and forgiveness have become the backbone of this campaign. This is probably a good thing for Sanford, but it is definitely a bad thing for the conservative party.

The RNC is trying to move away from the stigma that their party is controlled by the far right wing and that Evangelical Christians make up the party base. In contrast, it appears Sanford will run on a social conservative platform.

If the RNC chooses to roll out big bucks to bail out Sanford, they will be forced to tap into campaign coffers meant for the all-important 2014 congressional elections. Republicans can simply not afford to lose their congressional majority.

The Republican Party is truly at a crossroads. They must abandon the tainted and extreme right wing elements of their party to have a fighting chance. The Republican party of the last eight years has been characterized as too old, uncompromising, sloppy, and stupid to win the big elections. They are trying to move in a new direction by placing the moderate Christie and Latino Rubio at the vanguard of their party.

The 2012 election gave them a jolt. Party leadership saw the writing on the wall and they have tried to change. They have taken some new more progressive stances on policy, most notably in immigration.

But they seem unable to help themselves from continuing to support bad candidates in important, public races.

How many Newt Gingriches and Mark Sanfords must the Republican Party suffer through before they decide enough is enough? Southern white males who philander are a bad investment. You do not see the DNC letting John Edwards out of his cage much these days.

Updating their party’s platform on key issues was a step. An actual effort to gain the Latino vote will help too. But until the RNC stops aiding candidates like Sanford, and even allowing them to run, their hopes for 2014 and beyond will look just as bleak as they did on November 7, 2012.